Authority & Credibility:

• Is the responsible party an individual, an organization, or a company? How do you know?
• If no author is listed, break down the web address to determine responsible party
• What do you already know about the author or responsible party?
• Look for information provided on the site under the “About us” or “Our company” or “Our Mission” portion of the website
• Is there contact information provided for the author or responsible party?
• If it is an organization or association, look it up in The Gale Directory Library online database
• If it is a company, do a company search in Business Source Complete (online database)
• Who owns the domain? Enter the URL in a domain registry: Allwhois: http://allwhois.org/

Purpose, Objectivity, Point of View, Bias:

• What is the purpose of the website? (Look at the domain: is it commercial, educational, or a non-profit organization?)
• Who is the audience of the website? (age, level of education, specific profession, political affiliation, religion, special interests?)
• Look at the graphics & illustrations (attractive to children?) and advertisements
• Is there evidence of bias or propaganda?
• If you can interpret HTML code: look at the source code for the site to look at author-supplied keywords (Ctrl+U)

Accuracy & Reliability:

• Do the facts in other sources support the facts presented in the website?
• Is the writing clear and free of grammatical and typographical errors?
• What evidence of research is provided? Look for references or a bibliography / works cited, endnotes or footnotes.
• Are the sources for statistics and facts documented so you can verify them in another source? (It’s a good idea to do this)
• Are quotations attributed to named people?
• What other sites have links back to this site? Using Google, type in “link:” immediately followed by the website address.
• Is the website well-organized and easy to navigate?
• What are the author(s) research methods?

Coverage:

• What is the focus of the website? Does it offer information not available in other, more reliable resources, or does it simply repeat information available in more reliable resources?
• Does the website offer local, regional, national, or international coverage of the topic?

Currency & Timeliness:

• Can you determine when the information was created or last updated? (Don't be fooled by automatic date tickers)
• Are there any “dead” links on the page?

Appropriateness / Suitability:

• Is the source suitable for the assignment’s criteria?
• Is the source suitable for college-level research?
• Is the source able to be understood? (In English? Technical jargon?)